The Ballad of Red Barrett
by Red Barrett
Summary: What happens when the "hero" decides not to play hero? What happens when the Dragonborn decides to use his gods-given abilities as a bargaining chip to gain power? What happens when you can no longer trust the things you thought you could trust? Follow the adventures of Red Barrett as he journeys through Skyrim, discovering who his friends are, as well as his enemies.


Chapter 1:

 **Old Scares, New Nightmares**

* * *

 _Wake up._

Groggily, I lift my 3-old eyes up to see my mother, gently nudging me awake. "Mommy…?" I ask her sleepily, "What's going on?" Behind her I can see my father, hurriedly grabbing whatever valuables he can easily pack into rucksacks.

I look closer at my mother, the distress covering her like a fresh coat of paint. How could she tell her baby boy that his hero, the "Bear of Markarth," was coming to execute for a crime she hadn't committed, and that the only way to survive was to leave immediately? Before she could respond, my father speaks in a rushed tone, "Amelia, are you and Red ready to go?"

"Almost, Hrongar," she replies, "just need to get him ready to travel."

My father, walking into the other room, says to her, "Well hurry, there isn't much ti-"

He's cut off by the front door slamming open.

"What's going on in there?" My mother shouts. "Hrongar!?" The only reply she got was a Windhelm soldier walking toward her, sword in hand.

"What's going on here?" She asks, a strange mix of outrage and fright in her voice. As the guard tries to grab her, she pulls away from him and shouts, "Don't you touch me!" As he persists in his attempts to grab her, she shouts at him, "Hey!"

 _"Hey!"_

 _Hey…_

* * *

"Hey."

My head jolts up, sharply snapping me out of my nightmare. A dull pain pulsates from the back of my head, presumably from where the Imperials knocked me out after stumbling upon their ambush. I look down and notice that my clothes have been taken, their only substitute being some old prisoner's rags. As I try to reach for anything near me, I realize that my hands are tied as well. Suddenly, the man sitting across from me speaks to me in a relieved tone.

"Hey, you, you're finally awake."

He appears to be a roughly 30 to 35-year-old Nord. In fact, he looks strikingly similar to myself. The only true difference between the two of us are his higher cheekbones and overall darker complexion. Same flowing blonde hair, similar beard, same braid in the front, even the same blue eyes. He's wearing a basic cuirass with a large blue cloth wrapped around his neck and shoulders, which flows down the front of his torso left-to-right. His only other articles are a pair of boots and a weapon holster on his hip, empty. He also appears to be tied up, same as I. He pauses for a moment before continuing.

"You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." He motions toward the Nord sitting beside him.

This Nord looks almost nothing like myself and the one across from me. He has a darker, brown color to his hair. His hair is shorter, barely reaching to the top of his traps. He also has a dirtier, rougher looking complexion, like he's been working a field for most of his life. He has a slightly skinnier build than myself and the other Nord. He is, however, wearing a set of prisoner's rags like my own, as well as being tied up. Looking up, he responds spitefully.

"Damn you Stormcloaks. Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell." He pauses and looks toward me. "You there… You and me, we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants."

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," the first Nord responds.

The Imperial soldier driving the cart shouts, "Shut up back there!"

Speaking in a lower voice, the second Nord looks at the man beside me and asks, "And what's wrong with him, huh?"

"Watch your tongue!" The first Nord sharply responds. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King!"

 _That name…_

Immediately, a flood of nightmares and hatred rushes over me. How could I ever forget that name, the name of my mother's murderer? The cretin appears to have done well for himself as Jarl, adorned in rings, amulets, and finely-crafted clothing befitting a king. He has a rather protruding, ape-like mouth, overgrown in a beard similar to the first Nord's. His prideful voice is thankfully blocked by a gag in his mouth, accompanied by tied hands to prevent retaliation. He appears to have the same length hair as myself and the blonde Nord's, only in a darker shade and slicked back. He even has that signature Nord braid on his right side.

The brown-haired Nord asks, "Ulfric, the Jarl of Windhelm? You're the leader of the rebellion. But if they've captured you… Oh gods, where are they taking us?"

"I don't know where we're going," the blonde Nord responds, exasperated, "but Sovngarde awaits."

Frightened out of his wits, the second Nord quips, "No, this can't be happening. This isn't happening!"

Following this are a few minutes of silence, giving me time to take in my surroundings. The trees surrounding and swallowing the world around me are simply breathtaking. I had heard of the vast landscape of Skyrim, but never experienced it myself first-hand. We appear to be descending down a mountain road, heading west by my best guess.

 _Wait, What?_ I think to myself. _If that's Ulfric Stormcloak, shouldn't we be heading south to Cyrodiil, in order to put him on trial?_ I consider asking the driver what the reason for this was, but then I remember that I, too, am a prisoner, and as such don't have much grace with them. As we round the corner, a city's walls crawl into view. This city hardly looks like a city at all, more akin to a fort. As we approached the gate, the blonde Nord speaks to the second one.

"Hey, what village are you from, horse thief?"

Exasperated, he retorts, "Why do you care?"

"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."

Becoming a little more amicable, he replies, "Rorikstead. I'm… I'm from Rorikstead." As we pass through the gate, a soldier shouts from the archway.

"General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!"

An older man in finely crafted Imperial Armor replies, "Good, let's get this over with."

Upon hearing the word "headsman," the one from Rorikstead resumes his panicking. "Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh. Divines, please help me."

As we enter the city, the first thing I notice is the large number of houses that dot the city's landscape, quelling my suspicions that this was a fort. I also notice a few towers a small piece down the road from us. I glance at the blonde Nord and notice him staring at the General, with a very contorted look on his face.

"Look at him, General Tullius, the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this."

 _What is he talking about?_ I think, until I turn and see for myself. All of my life, I have been taught that the Empire was no friend of the Aldmeri Dominion's. And yet lo and behold, here to oversee and stick their grubby little hands on every aspect of Ulfric Stormcloak's execution was the Thalmor, the envoys of the Dominion. I'm dumbfounded, speechless. I have been completely and utterly deceived by the Empire my entire life, and here is the proof, sitting on horses in front of me.

The blonde-haired Nord says something about some mead with berries, but I remain locked in my deluded trance what for seems like an hour until we roll past some townspeople down the road speaking.

"Who are they, daddy? Where are they going?" One child asks.

"You need to go inside, little cub," his father replies.

"Why? I want to watch the soldiers."

"Inside the house. Now."

"Yes, papa."

We roll past these people to an open area between two of the previously mentioned towers. We park along a wall running along one side of each of the two towers, with a gate just to our right in the wall. An Imperial Captain barks orders at her subordinates.

"Get these prisoners out of the carts. Move it!"

The brown-haired Nord asks, "Why are we stopping?"

"Why do you think?" replies the blonde Nord. "End of the line." As we stand up and prepare to leave the cart, he says, "Let's go, shouldn't keep the gods waiting."

The one from Rorikstead defiantly says, "No! Wait! We're not rebels!"

"Face your death with some courage, thief."

"You've got to tell them! We weren't with you! This is a mistake!"

Before the two of them can continue, the Captain begins giving orders to the prisoners.

"Step towards the block when we call your name. One at a time!"

The blonde-haired Nord mutters, "Empire loves their damn lists."

"That they do, my friend," I reply to him, "their lists and their lies and whatever else they have to do to make people fall in line."

The Nord chuckled at that. "Now you sound like a real kinsman," he responded.

The Captain, after finding a soldier to read off the names, begins the end.

"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm."

As he makes his way toward the block, the blonde Nord shouts, "It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric!" The soldier continues to read names off the list.

"Ralof of Riverwood." At this, the blonde Nord steps toward the block to accompany his Jarl to Sovngarde.

"Lokir of Rorikstead."

The brown-haired Nord steps forward and argues, "No, I'm not a rebel, you can't do this!" He begins sprinting down the road in a vain attempt to escape his death. The Captain shouts for archers to shoot him down, who do so immediately and effectively.

After putting her first prisoner down, the Captain says to the remaining ones, "Anyone else feel like running?"

The soldier reading the list gets a confused look on his face, then speaks to me. "Wait, you there, step forward." I step toward him, hands still tied, though tightly clenched into fists. He asks me, "Who are you?"

I answer him, "My name is Red Barrett, and I'm from Harlun's Watch, near Cheydinhal." His face retains its confused look.

"You picked a bad time to come home to Skyrim, kinsman," he says. "Captain, what should we do? He's not on the list."

"Forget the list," she replies, "he goes to the block."

"By your orders, Captain." He looks at me sullenly and says, "I'm sorry. At least you'll die here, in your homeland. Follow the Captain, prisoner." I give the Captain a stern, disapproving look until I reach my standing place. As I await my impending demise, General Tullius addresses Ulfric.

"Ulfric Stormcloak. Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use a power like The Voice to murder his King and usurp his throne." Ulfric attempts to retort, but all he manages to do is grunt. "You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the Empire is going to put you down, and restore the peace." Before he can continue, a distant roar can be heard, echoing across the mountains.

The Imperial soldier asks, "What was that?"

"It's nothing. Carry on," the General answered.

"Yes, General Tullius!" The Captain resounds in the most formal-sounding voice possible. She barks at the Priestess of Arkay "Give them their last rites."

The Priestess follows the Captain's orders. "As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the eight divines upon you, for you-"

She's cut off by the first Stormcloak soldier stepping toward the block, "For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with."

Offended, the Priestess retorts, "As you wish."

"Come on, I haven't got all morning," the soldier says mockingly while standing in front of the chopping block, lingering in that spot for as long as possible before the Captain grabs him and kneels him down. As the headsman prepares his axe, the soldier leaves the Imperials with a foreboding question. "My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials. Can you say the same?" Immediately after this, the headsman swings his axe with deadly precision and power.

 _*Chop*_

The soldier's head falls down into the box by the block, making a slight thud when it lands. Numerous cries of praise and condemnation for the beheading ring out from both the prisoners and the crowds. Once the cries die down, the Captain calls out, "Next, the Nord in the rags!"

Before I step toward the block, another echoing roar rings out across the mountaintops.

The Imperial soldier states, "There it is again. Did you hear that?"

"I said, next prisoner!" She retorts, determined to finish the executions quickly.

"To the block prisoner," the soldier says, "nice and easy."

Doing as I am told, I step toward the block, remaining standing as long as possible to avoid the inevitable. The Captain steps behind me and kneels me down over the headsman's block, my final resting place before the eternal resting place.

At this point, I embrace death. I already lost my mother years ago, murdered by the man who is about to be executed. I lost my father to the plague in Cyrodiil over the winter of 200. The Empire claimed my family's smith in Harlun's Watch since I couldn't make enough money to pay the taxes. And now here I lie, in my homeland, bent over a headsman's block, about to meet eternity. There is nothing left for me. Therefore, I embrace death.

Just before the headsman does the deed, I look over his shoulder and see- or at least, I think I see- a dragon, flying toward us. _Take me to my eternal rest, Akatosh_ , I think to myself. I close my eyes, taking in my last view of the world. I hear the headsman brandish his axe over his head and exert his force into a swift chop toward my head.

 _*Clang*_


End file.
